Another productive day for everyone, it sounds.  We really can’t wait to see the presentations.  More new pages for January Joiner (4 new scenes!) and a great day of rehearsal for both Froggy and January Joiner.  Matt told us that Jen has been doing some fairly major tweaks to Froggy.  Seriously, we can’t wait to see that play on its feet — we can’t wait to see any of these plays on their (respective) feet.

Evening cold reading of Dead Children, where Barret O’Brien played a 55 year-old cop and Danny Ryan played his 40-year-old buddy.  CSI/Law & Order, eat your heart out.  Then, a contingent headed off to Sullivan’s (including stage manager extraordinaire Sunny Stapleton who has been putting in some crazy work hours — she’s amazing) to watch Liz J. scarf down a root beer float and, uhm, fries at 11:30 at night.

It’s still raining.  But the exterminator came and our friends are gone.

It sounds like rehearsal was very productive for Froggy.  Matt Morrow and Jen said that they’re working in projections and figuring out foley sound.  Everyone’s jumped enthusiastically into getting the piece on its feet.   Laura has two scenes for Act II of January Joiner – and May and Laura informed us that during today’s rehearsal Andrew (who is playing a fitness instructor in January Joiner) came up with a character-appropriate fitness regime.  We wish we had been there — it would have been nice to have gotten some exercise.  Laura’s a Writing Machine.  She’s cranking out those new pages.  We’ve told her that we want January Joiner to be four acts.

2010 playwriting fellow Eli Clark joined us.  She’ll be working on her play Dead Children in preparation for a private closed reading that we’re doing of Dead Children next Monday (the amazing Annie Kauffman is directing the reading).

Off to dinner at Bru Bar, where we all shared a truly tasty concoction — pizza with mashed potatoes.  I know: It doesn’t really sound appealing.  Trust us, though.  It is.

We were greeted by a downpour.  I mean — it was (is) more like a deluge.  But not even puddles the size of the Caspian Sea can kept our merry band (Ed. Note: “merry band”?  Who am I?) from heading over to the two rehearsal rooms in the basement of 305 Crown Street.  An epic cast of 7 (with Yale residency alums Barret O’Brien and Erica Sullivan (whom we like to refer to as the Luntzes of New Haven) and Aleta Mitchel and new participants Mike Boland, Sarah Sokolovic (who is a current Yale School of Drama acting student), Christin Sawyer Davis and Danny Ryan), playwright Jen Haley, director Matt Morrow and projection designer Laura Eckelman (a current lighting design student at the YSD) met early in the afternoon to put Jen Haley’s Froggy (in which a woman sees her long-lost lover in a video and tries to find him) on its feet.  Froggy is kind of unbelievable.  On the page, it very much resembles a comic strip.  Jen has had some readings of the script, but she’s never seen it in a workshop setting.  Needless to say, we’re pretty excited.

Next, the January Joiner team assembled in the other rehearsal room in 305 Crown Street.  Laura Jacqmin’s new play (she only has one act) January Joiner follows twins Myrtle and Terry, who are morbidly obese and decide to enroll in a fitness camp.  Myrtle and Terry are being played, respectively, by Leigh Wade and Sofia Gomez who are hardly morbidly obese (Eric Ting of Long Wharf very generously is donating one fat suit for the reading).  They’re joined by Jon Levenson (who is sadly on crutches), Andrew Kelsey (who will be a third year in the acting program at Yale) and Stephanie Hayes (who will also be a third year in the acting program at Yale).  May Adrales is directing the reading.   It’s way too soon to say anything more about January Joiner.  The first act is mind-boggingly moving, funny, sad.

January Joiner did have a late-night visit, though.  Apparently, the downpour got to a family of cockroaches who decided to pay a brief visit to January Joiner.  Awesome.  Exterminators (sorry, cockroach family) are being contacted.  The team from January Joiner fled the premises and joined (January Joiner joined – heh) the team of Froggy at Sullivan’s for a round of drinks and succor from the rain.  Yale lit manager Amy Boratko and Long Wharf Associate Artistic Director also hung out with us til we closed down the place because that’s what we do when we are in New Haven.

Here’s Reggie at Page 73 on Page 73:

It’s that time of year again.  Page 73 on Page 73.  We’re sprinting towards the end of our fiscal year — one last bit til we get there.  It’s going to be a kick-ass evening.  We’ve got Savoir Adore, Reggie Watts and Hooray for Earth — and the unbelievable Tommy Smith.  Buy your tix now!  Here’s a preview/trailer of each:

SAVOIR ADORE

REGGIE WATTS

HOORAY FOR EARTH

Hope that you’ll be there!

Only 4 more performances.  That’s all you have to see Sam Hunter’s Jack’s Precious Moment.  These things go by so quickly.   So get on over to 59E59! Sam’s unbelievable.

Jack’s Precious Moment starts previews in exactly a week.  We load-in on Monday and start performances on Friday — a shortened tech, for sure.  Don’t have your ticket yet?  What are you waiting for.

In the meantime:

Dan LeFranc received the 2010 New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award for Sixty Miles to Silver Lake.  We were there to watch him shake Arthur Sulzberger’s hand and be interviewed for 15-20 minutes at the New York Times Center.  It was really nice.  And it was great to have a mini-Sixty Miles reunion and see Dane DeHaan, Joe Adams, Sarah Benson, Tania Camargo and Dane Laffrey.  But we missed Annie Kauffman, because she’s off directing her fancy-schmancy play.

Go, Heidi Schreck.  2009 P73 Playwriting Fellow Heidi Schreck (who is also uhm an actor – heh) is getting the Theatre World Award.  Also!  There Are No More Big Secrets – which she wrote while being the fellow – is having a reading at MTC’s 7@7 on May 24 directed by none-other-than Kip Fagan.  (We won’t be able to be there b/c we have a reading that same night for Sam Marks’s new play directed by Sam Gold.)  And, by the way, congrats to one of our other favorite actors: Keira Keely (who also has done readings of There Are No More Big Secrets) for her Theatre World Award.

Oh, hi.  It’s us.

Did you hear?  We’re producing this amazingly funny and heartbreaking play called “Jack’s Precious Moment“.  It’s by Sam Hunter — you may remember him as one of the participants of last year’s Yale residency.  Also, it’s being directed by Kip Fagan, who was up at Yale with us that summer too.  And it stars the amazing Tom Bloom, Lucas Papaelias, Eddie Kaye Thomas and Karen Walsh.  Who are the designers, you ask?  Lee Savage, Matt Frey, Jessica Ford and Bart Fasbender.  You remember Matt: He did our lights for “Creature“.  He’s great.  And you’ll love Lee, Jess and Bart.  They’re ridiculously talented.

So what’s “Jack’s Precious Moment” about?   It’s about Bib, his sister-in-law Karen and his father Jim.  Then there’s Chuck.  Bib, Karen and Jim go to the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, MO after Bib’s twin is beheaded by Muslim insurgents.

We g-chatted with Sam Hunter the other day and asked him some questions about the Precious Moments Chapel (he was there last weekend).  Here’s how our g-chat went:

Precious Moments Angel

PAGE 73: Let’s talk Precious Moments.  How did you first discover them?
SAMUEL HUNTER: In my experience, if you grew up anywhere but the East Coast, you know what they are. Growing up in Idaho, I always knew what Precious Moments were–my family wasn’t into them, but I was definitely familiar with them.  Some friends of the family even had a Precious Moments wedding when I was in high school.  I didn’t really know what they were all about, I just recognized them as hyper-saccharine Hallmark images–but a few years ago, a friend of mine who had visited the Precious Moments Chapel told me about their fundamentalist Christian content.  I’ve always been really interested by fundamentalism–I went to a fundamentalist Christian high school in Idaho for many years before leaving under awkward circumstances–and religion always filters into my writing somehow.  The amazing thing about Precious Moments is that they’re at once really ridiculous and really heartbreaking. They’re cartoony, but they’re also a really meaningful vehicle for grief and spirituality for thousands of people.

P73: It’s amazing that something so saccharine-looking commemorates such a tragedy.  There’s nothing remotely ironic or cheesy about them –
SH: Exactly.  When I went to the chapel, there was an entire room in the back with book after book where people could write stories about loved ones–most often children–who had died. And as I entered the visitor center, one of the first things you see is a large Precious Moments fireman holding something–and when you notice that it’s labeled “Oklahoma City 1995″ you realize that it’s holding a dead child.

P73: Did you talk to any other visitors when you went to the Chapel?
SH: Not to the visitors–I talked to the tour guide for a bit.  Honestly a part of me felt a little guilty being there, taking some too-cool-for-school pleasure out of the whole experience.  But, whenever I got snarky, I would turn around and see a picture of a child who died at age 10 and be totally crushed.

P73: Do they hold services in there?
SH: As far as I can tell it’s not an actual chapel–more of a museum styled like a chapel. Samuel Butcher (the creator) was inspired to build it after visiting the Sistine Chapel.  It’s really amazing–and it sort of defies classification.  It’s not folk art because Samuel Butcher went to art school, it’s not completely commercial because the chapel itself is not-for-profit and doesn’t charge admission, and it’s obviously not museum art.  It’s really pretty unique and incredible.

A Fresco

P73: I want to go back to this idea though (which is so much part of JACK’S PRECIOUS MOMENT): there’s so much comedy (absurd comedy) in JACK’S PRECIOUS MOMENT and yet you never make fun of these characters — we may find their situations absurd and their obsession with these figurines ridiculous — but you have the utmost respect, empathy and (dare I say?) love for them. This really comes through in the writing.
SH: Really the last thing in the world that I want to do is be the sort of writer who makes fun of the sort of people he grew up with.  As strange as my relationship was with fundamentalist Christianity (especially growing up gay in northern Idaho), I still have a lot of empathy for these people.  Fundamentalism is something that I’m continually angered by, but something that I’m continually drawn to.  Right now I think there’s a tendency to paint religious people in theater and film in these broad strokes of mindless devotion and annoying simplicity.  The play is not only about how Precious Moments are sort of silly, but also about how they’re incredibly meaningful.  In a way, I think the play sort of comes out in defense of Precious Moments, which for me is the more interesting thing to consider.  It’s really easy to laugh at them, it’s a lot harder to ask why they mean so much to so many people.  When I was at the chapel, there was story after story of how these figurines and the culture surrounding them gave people such peace.  It’s hard to be completely ironic and cynical about Precious Moments after hearing the story of a mother who was finally able to grieve after her dead daughter was made into a figurine.

P73: What did people write in the book in the Chapel?  Did they talk about how the Precious Moments figurines have helped them cope?  Did they describe the death of their loved ones? It’s amazing to me…
SH: For the most part it was describing the death of a loved one–in some cases asking Samuel Butcher to make them into a figurine.  I spent an hour or so looking through the books, a few that I remember off-hand said things like: “for my aunt, she died by the current in the ocean”, “in memory of my cousin who died of a drug overdose”, and perhaps the strangest, “sorry for my brother killing you, peace to her family, his sister”.

*********

I suppose that all young theater folk grow up forcing plays on other children who live in their neighborhood.  At least I did.  I wrote various plays, and sometimes musicals, that I would force other children (cousins, neighbors, kids I babysat) to star in.  I got especially angry with children who took a really long time to learn their music (“I don’t really understand why it’s hard for you to just repeat this melody back to me.  No, it isn’t changing every time I sing it!”).

The first play I wrote as a teenager was called TALK OF PLEASANT THINGS and I directed it at my high school, much to the detriment of my willingness and enthusiasm to show my face at reunions.  It was about, among other things, AIDS, alcoholism, and abandonment.

When I got to college, I wrote a play with parts for twelve actors.  Eight of these parts had about six lines apiece.  This is when I got my first lesson in “unproducability.” Rolin Jones, a phenomenal writer who mentored me through the process of writing this play, mentioned the possibility of one or two actors playing multiple roles.  I was like, “What?” and he was like, “Yeah.”

And so eight parts became two.  And the play got a lot stronger and better because of it (not that anyone will ever get to read it, see it, or even touch it).

Somehow, though, I’ve forgotten that lesson in writing this new play.  I find myself with nine characters and counting.  I’m hoping there will come a time somewhere down the line where I can whittle some of these people away, but it’s hard to write about a family without including everybody.

At least I’ve lightened up a little when picking subjects to write about.

Back to writing DEAD CHILDREN now.

My first blog post as the 2010 Playwriting Fellow and here it is.

A quick introduction perhaps?  My name is Eliza Clark, I’m a huge fan of Page 73 and I feel so incredibly lucky to be working with them this year on my play, Dead Children.   I was a member of Interstate 73 last year and every meeting felt like one step closer to being a working playwright.  In fact, I’m pretty sure one of the “notes” I gave Tommy Smith after a reading of one of his plays was, “This play is so awesome I feel like you just gave me a lesson in how to be a good writer.”  I’m not bragging about my ability to give constructive notes, but I am really good at expressing how much I love fellow writers.  This company gives me an immense amount of hope about the future of theater, and I feel like I’ve won the lottery.

I’m currently living in Los Angeles, writing for a new TV show that is going to be airing on AMC starting August 1^st.  The show is called Rubicon and it’s a conspiracy thriller in the style of those great seventies movies like Three Days of the Condor.  I’m currently in the midst of writing the first draft of Act One of Dead Children and simultaneously working on the first draft of Episode Seven of the show.

I’ve never actually written two things simultaneously, and I’ve never ever written for television, so this process has been illuminating to say the least.  For me, the process of writing involves a lot of self-loathing, procrastination, and sadness, followed eventually by fulfillment, elation, and treats (including but not limited to cupcakes).  I’m currently experiencing some of the restless sadness that comes with beginning a new play – I’m still getting to know these characters, and I’m letting them breathe and talk a little too much.  The pages I do have favor certain characters more than others (those I have a better handle on), so much so that the play has a bit of a limp.  I have a feeling that the first draft might be eight hundred pages before I whittle it down to a slim ninety.

Perhaps playwrights should never blog.  I promise to try not to use this blog as a veiled message to those who will be reading my early pages to go easy on me.  Though, if they choose to see it that way, I won’t be disappointed.  Next Tuesday will be the first time that Asher and Liz see pages of Dead Children, and I hope they will be able to see the early kernels of a play amongst the wreckage of my broad strokes ideas.  I’m starting to see a play in here somewhere, which is encouraging.  Even more encouraging is the deadline I’m working toward, and the people on the other side of the country who keep me tethered to the theater while I’m swimming through television’s waters.